Accessing information is information used by a terminal device to access a wireless communication system. Generally, access information (for example, a broadcasted access information table (AIT)) is transmitted in a sparse style in order to reduce overhead for broadcast information. In some wireless communication systems, terminal devices are provided with access information by using broadcasted access information tables (AITs) and discovery signals. The discovery signals may be, for example, broadcasted system signatures (SSs) used to identify information from the broadcasted AIT.
The AIT may for example include settings concerning how a terminal device shall access the system, e.g., by a random access procedure, concerning how the terminal device can be reached by the system in a paging procedure, or concerning more advanced settings, such as related to beam forming or link adaptation. The AIT includes entries applying to various access nodes. The AIT is typically transmitted with long periodicity, while the SS is typically transmitted more frequently. Typically, each access node transmits an SS which allows the terminal device to identify the information applicable to this access node from the AIT. The AIT may be transmitted by one or more access nodes, but do not need to be transmitted by every access node.
Conventionally, the periodicity of the SS may be broadcasted in a small periodicity, for example, 100 ms, while the periodicity of the AIT is quite long, for example, 10240 ms. In such cases, the terminal device may have to perform long time blind detection before obtaining the access information. As a result, power consumption in blind detection of the access information is increased, which is undesirable and needs to be mitigated.